Happy early birthday to ME!!!

Look what I got yesterday...

It is an early birthday, Christmas gift from my parents. I have been dying for a treadmill. I haven't used it yet but it is pretty sweet looking! It has a hook up for my ipod and speakers. Well, I'm off to try it out. Thanks Dad and Mom!!!

a DaTE!!!

I have an outstanding date for the next 90 days with this....

We will see how that goes, it looks like I will just be mostly crying through most of it!

{wHat A wAy tO saY GooDbYe}

Our trip to Cancun was short but full of fun and friends. We got to see and spend time with all of our great friends that we have made over the years. It is always nice being able to see them outside of the whole summer environment, so much less stressful! We had a lot of fun and hardly sat still for a moment so needless to say I have a million pictures so I will just post them and try to explain as I go...

Our Hotel, Fiesta Americana Condesa















This 'Palapa",(spelling?), was HUGE! The lobby was just inside of it and it was all open, no doors or windows. It was so cool.














The view from our room!!!
















Our good friends, Beth and Ryan. They live in Canada so we rarely get to see them. They brought there two little girls, Hailey and Ava, they were so cute and fun to be with.

The beach just behind our hotel.

Ryan getting his fake tattoo and Hailey getting her hair braided. Pretty cute!

Shopping with the girls!

Okay, these guys were nuts!!

They climb up this pole and then sit on this little square that looked like nothing more than a few 2x4's nailed together and go around in a circle winding up ropes until they are all wound tightly and then.....

....they wrap the end around themselves and start swinging upside down all the way back down. All the while one guy is standing on the top playing a flute and a drum.

The first day we were there we went with our friends Dan and Sofia to some ruins called, Tulum. These ruins were right on a cliff over looking the ocean and it was unbelievably gorgeous!

There were iguanas everywhere, and not just little ones. There were some that were probably at least three feet long.

This building was one of the temples and my favorite. I think I have about 900 pictures just of that building. Everywhere you looked there was a carving or painting.

If you enlarge the pictures you can see the detail a lot better and it is amazing. I don't know why but things like this amaze me. These are the second ruins we have seen, we went to some last year in Belize. I just can't get enough of it!

The crazy photographers APX hired. They followed everyone around taking pictures of everything we did. It was a little weird and it felt a little like the paparazzi.

After our sightseeing of ruins all day we had worked up quite the appetite. We stopped in a town that looked like it was just a little fishing village. It was pretty much all local people, right on the coast. We went to a restaurant that was literally right on the beach. Nic got a lobster that was huge and cheap. I had the biggest shrimp I had ever seen in my life. Also we discovered that before tasting any salsa you should ask how spicy it is. The salsa we were given turned out to be made from Habenero's, only the hottest in the world! It was so yummy. Actually the food was the best part and the fact that we got to share it with friends made it even better.

We had the greatest time and it will not soon be forgotten. It is times like this that will be missed. I couldn't think of a better way to say goodbye to our APX family.

Adios!!!

Nic and I are getting out of this cold snowy weather and heading south to a warmer climate. We are going to Cancun with APX! A much needed mini retreat and even more fun to enjoy when someone else is paying for it!!! I will blog about all the fun and relaxation next week.

Christmas Craziness!!!

Christmas no matter what we try to do is always such a crazy whirlwind of activity from Christmas eve morning to the end of Christmas day! Luckily for us everything we are busy doing is fun and we are doing it with family.

Every Christmas Eve Nic's family meets at Golden Coral for breakfast. If you know the size of his family then you will understand why a place like Golden Coral is the best option. With 7 kids all married, 20 something grand kids, a Nana and a Papa it is a full house. The kids get to exchange gifts with there cousins and they love it. It is always a lot of fun and we look forward to it every year.

Christmas Eve is spent somewhat quieter with my family. With my brother on his mission and my sister and I being the only married ones and only 4 grand kids it is much more low key. We eat dinner and open our Christmas eve jammies.

Christmas day is again crazy and nonstop fun and gift giving. The kids were so happy with everything they got. The most important things Santa didn't forget was the Bakugans and skateboard for Nic and Mermaid Barbies for Gracie! It was a great Christmas and although by the end of it all we are totally exhausted it is all well worth it.

Programs, parties and performances!

Some of the 200 kindergartners at Saratoga Shores Elementary! The little one in the front with the red shirt is the cutest!

Sorry about the blurry pictures, I don't know what the deal was with the camera.

Gracie's little preschool class had a little program and sang for all of the parents. It was really cute and they did great! After they sang there was a surprise visitor....

...Santa, whom Gracie still refuses to even come within 5 feet of. This one did smell a bit like beef and cheese!

A couple weeks before Christmas Gracie's dance studio put on the production of 'The Little Match Girl". Here she is with the 3 other girls in her class dancing her little heart out. Gracie was the best one up there!!! Okay, okay I have a bit of a biased opinion.

Gracie with her teacher who she loves, Mrs. Robyn

Aunt Nikki & Goose

Our Fam

Grandpa, Gracie & Grandma

Catching up...

I am playing blog catch up! So several new posts to come soon...

First:
Gracie's 4th Birthday!

We celebrated with my family on the Sunday before her birthday and her party was inspired by the book 'Pinkalicious', hence the reason everything is pink! She wanted pizza, root beer floats and BIG PINK CUPCAKES just like in the book!

On her actual birthday she wanted to go swimming so we went to the Lehi Legacy Center Pool and luckily we went during the day when other kids are in school so there was no one else there. We pretty much had the pool, slides and toys all to ourselves and we had a blast.

After swimming we had worked up quite an appetite so went to Leatherby's and stuffed our faces full of yummy ice cream! Gracie of course wanted just plain vanilla so she got her own little dish of plain vanilla with a candle in it. We had so much fun spending the whole day doing things that Gracie wanted to do and doing them all with just our little family. It was a perfect day!